


always darkest before dawn

by notavodkashot



Series: words are futile devices [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: (Almost) Everyone Lives AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And not so background, Awkward Romance in the background, Bahamut's Plan is Stupid and Dumb, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark is not Evil, Different things that are different kind of terrible will happen instead, Everyone else tries extra hard to make up for it, Everything terrible that happened in canon will not happen here, F/M, Family Feels, Fix-It of Sorts, Light is not Good, M/M, Morality is hard when you're dead and or immortal, Multi, Overall a happy story though, Roadtrip Misadventures, The entire plot takes a Third Option, The plot equivalent of a gordian knot, They're just gonna have to work for that happy ending though, the kids are all grown up and ready to make their own mess of things
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-01-17 09:08:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21264617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notavodkashot/pseuds/notavodkashot
Summary: There's a road trip, a Chosen King, a Shield, an Adviser, a Friend, a Knight, an Oracle, a Prophecy... and a certain way it is all meant to go.Except itdoesn'tgo that way.
Relationships: Aranea Highwind/Luche Lazarus/Tredd Furia, Cor Leonis/Nyx Ulric, Gladiolus Amicitia/Ignis Scientia, Lunafreya Nox Fleuret/Noctis Lucis Caelum, Prompto Argentum/Ravus Nox Fleuret
Series: words are futile devices [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/852660
Comments: 96
Kudos: 122





	1. facilitators, of a sort

**Author's Note:**

> This story picks up immediately after the end of [the sun is out, the day is new](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12302844/chapters/27967644), so you should probably read that if you want to know exactly what's going on here. Reading the rest of the side stories will give you further context of the plot: it was mostly sitting in the background in the previous "main" story, but it won't so much here.
> 
> Hope you enjoy it!

Once upon a time, there was a girl who lied so well her right hand had no idea what her left hand was doing. The world was an ugly, ruthless, callous place, but she was uglier, more ruthless and more callous than it could hope to imagine, so she survived. 

She survived war and betrayal and lies and the endless parade of people deciding for her, what her life would be like, what she would do and when and how and with whom. She survived not by being kind or patient or utterly selfless, but by being the ugly, ruthless, callous monster that knew so well the value of a smile when it came to deliver a good lie. She was cunning and conniving and fundamentally selfish, but since the world refused to apologize for all ugly, ruthless, callous bits that had shaped her, one chipped corner of her soul at the time, she staunchly refused to apologize right back. 

She could have survived everything, she was fairly sure, but she’d chosen not to. 

So, once upon a time, there was a girl lying to the world, hiding inside the bones of a woman who carried a crown and her pride so convincingly, that no one had ever noticed how scared and hateful she truly was. And that girl made a choice to die, not to save the world, but – ostensibly – her son. She died so he could live, and she was so good at lying, she even believed it herself. Even if all she _really_ wanted was the chance to break something so fundamentally grand as a god’s plan for humanity. Because she hated nothing more than being told what to do, and no one did that more than a god. 

But sacrifice is only palatable if it’s selfless and no one really likes a selfish hero, so once upon a time, a girl became a Queen, and when she died, her truth died with her, because no one but herself had ever known it. 

And when they brought her back, echoes trapped in the storm of magic she stole for herself, to ensure this would happen, exactly as she wanted it to, a bit of that truth came back, too. 

“So?” Aulea asked, hands deep in the pockets of her pants, back slouched forward and hair a stubborn mess of unevenly cut tips sticking out rather daringly. “What’s the plan?” 

She was not, Ardyn thought somewhat sullenly, what he’d been expecting. He wasn’t sure why he kept having expectations, at this point; he’d been serving his Mistress two whole millennia and She kept making as much sense now as She did when he first met Her. That was to say: not one lick of it. But then, he served decay and corruption and darkness; not evil, per se, but the entirety of things that rested on the opposite side of the scale from things that people generally found pleasant and agreeable. They were supposed to be senseless and irrational and broken, off balance. That was the whole point. That was why he’d chosen to serve, in the first place. 

Aulea Lucis Caelum, he’d been told, had also chosen to serve, but the other side of the spectrum, the bits and pieces of his Mistress that had been scattered and trapped within the vastness of the Crystal, when She’d been torn asunder, so long ago. Light and life and all things good and wholesome and worth saving. 

Ardyn had expected someone like the man he’d once been, before betrayal and failure and the burn of Somnus’ sword sank deep in his gut. Someone who understood the weight and importance of the path they’d chosen, in defiance of the Astrals and the Draconian in particular. Someone selfless and perhaps naïve, that he’d have to induct into the wretched, blackened truths of the world to test their determination to their cause. 

Aulea Lucis Caelum was… not that. 

“_The_ Plan,” Ardyn sneered, unable to help himself as he stopped next to the car parked inconspicuously several blocks away from the tiny cemetery where he’d found Lucis’ erstwhile Queen, “spans more than two thousand years and an uncountable number of controlled disasters engineered purely to careen the Draconian’s machinations off rails and square into Hers.” He arched an eyebrow when she refused to look even the slightest bit impressed by that. “I have neither the will nor the time to explain The Plan, Mrs. Stab First, Ask Questions Later.” He snorted. “I can, however, provide you with _a_ plan, which is frankly more than you deserve.” He nodded at the car. “Get in.” 

Aulea proceeded to not do that. Which, in all fairness, Ardyn should have expected at this point. 

“You own a pink convertible,” she said, eyebrows arched in a way that implied there was something at all wrong with Ardyn’s perfectly functional car, which happened to be pink, and also a convertible. 

“Haven’t made up my mind if I’ll be returning it to the rental after all,” Ardyn replied, sliding into the driver’s seat without skipping a beat, “so owning is still tentative, I’m afraid.” 

Aulea made a face, the sort Ardyn was used to making at stupid people, but not quite used to be on the receiving end of, and then she sighed loudly, shoulders slumping, before she gingerly entered the car with the air of one braving the inside of a behemoth’s den. 

“You’re going to be a bitch to work with, aren’t you,” she said, pointedly not buckling up a seatbelt. 

Ardyn considered finding out what would happen if a dead apparition died in a terrible car accident, and then decided the car was not at fault for his poor choice of passenger. 

In the back of his head, he heard Her snicker, faint like a murmur, drowned in the screaming he was absolutely ignoring. 

“Well,” he said, as he started the engine, “you did tell me to go fuck myself on our first meeting, my dear. That doesn’t exactly predispose someone to be amicable.” 

Which was a very poignant understatement, but he was above pointing out the obvious. He prided himself in a sharper wit, whenever he had enough of a mind to remember it. 

“Right,” she snorted right back, infuriating and nonchalant and still very much not anything close to what Ardyn had attempted to guess he’d be working with. And then she added, with that vicious drawl, right as he opened his mouth to inform her of this fact: “So what exactly predisposes you to _shut the fuck up_ and drive?” 

Ardyn slammed on the brakes abruptly and watched impassively as she bounced off the dashboard with a grunt. 

“_That_,” he replied, smirking as she snarled, and then did his honest best to ignore her, as he set out towards Keycatrich. 

On his shoulders, still exhausted from the effort, the fox slept on, a wisp of dark and scourge buried somewhere beneath his hair, breathing soft puffs of air against the back of his neck. Ardyn stared at the stoplight and weighted the consequences of outright willing it to green, if not straight up ignoring it. It was better than acknowledge Aulea as she threw her seat as far back as it’d go and propped up her feet on the dashboard, in a posture that looked defiantly uncomfortable. 

It was going to be a long day, he reckoned, and not just because traffic was still in a knot after the Prince and his fiancé left the city with all pomp and ceremony that morning. 

* * *

“Wanna take a picture?” Aulea asked, hands on her hips as she snapped Ardyn out of his blank staring at the imposing statue of the Founder King. “Might last you longer.” 

He sneered, first on reflex and then very purposefully, and swept past the statue and straight for the hole in the northern rock wall that encircled the settlement. 

“I’d rather not, darling,” he drawled at her as he snapped the fingers of his left hand with a flick of his wrist and caused time around them to stand still. “After you,” he added, motioning past the frozen patrol that was meant to protect the entrance to the tomb hidden deep in the ruins. 

“That’s a neat trick,” she said, one eyebrow arched as she ducked under the arm of a man, frozen mid-motion as he pointed in the general direction of the main street. “Bet you could have a lot of fun with that, if you cared to try.” 

“You should be grateful I don’t care to try many of the things I could do,” Ardyn retorted dryly, following her through the tunnels with a snort. 

“…do you shave yourself on your edgy bullshit every morning?” Aulea retorted right back, just as dry. 

Ardyn scoffed. 

“Yes,” he replied, “always.” 

The rest of the trek down into the ruins was done in the same testy, awkward silence that the drive out of Insomnia had had. Ardyn contemplated the rather cathartic possibility of having a meltdown and taking the entire blasted town with him, but he remembered there was a tomb somewhere in the depths they were exploring and that meant the hallowed King of Light would have to visit it at some point for this whole charade to be worthwhile. So he refrained. Barely. 

He’d gotten better, really, over the centuries, at remembering himself. Selectively. When it mattered. Admittedly, Galahd had been a massive indulgence but in Ardyn’s defense, who was he to refuse the chance to tell the most judgmental of the Astrals where he could stuff his blighted staff. It’d taken the Oracle’s presence to awaken him from that particular reprieve, but by the time he’d reached Gralea, it was as if he’d never left at all in the first place. 

And then… well. 

Niflheim was hardly the first or the largest empire he’d brought down to its knees, in his long career as locus of the scourge. He had a system, well refined and perfected over the centuries he’d spent roaming the land and trying to score something approaching balance with the ever growing tumor of light nested deep in Somnus’ walled heirloom of a city. Some he’d enjoyed greatly, others had been a chore. But for all Niflheim had crowed about its history and legacy, claiming ties that ran as far back as Solheim, they never mentioned the charred wastelands bordering West, the places Ardyn had roamed first, when the wound was flesh and he couldn’t hope to keep his wits about him, if he was within sight of Lucis and all its sordid lies. The brighter the light grew, at the heart of the Crystal, the deeper the dark Ardyn sowed across the barren fields, on and on, because She commanded it. But also, because he felt like it. He had no pity for the lives he took, cut down like ripe wheat wherever his corruption spread, no second thoughts spared for the men, women and children that invariably fell into the pit, fuel to the fire of his revenge. And he did so because he understood, deep down, that all tragedies in the world, big and small, his own not the least of them, had only one thing in common there, and it was the fact people were and remained forever the same. Selfish. Cowardly. 

They deserved what was coming, every single one of them. 

Aulea was a testament to that. Queen of Lucis, Mother of the King of Light, Sacrifice for the Grand Plan… And she was just as hateful, as unpleasant, as ruthless as the rest of the world. 

“Can we both agree that this is the dumbest place to put a tomb?” Aulea asked, exactly in the hateful, unpleasant tone that punctuated Ardyn’s meandering thoughts perfectly. “_And_ a secret sealed evil maze, too.” 

“There’s the sewers,” Ardyn retorted, somewhat amused by the unamused expression on her face. “_And_ the abandoned mines.” He paused in delight, watching her glare sharpen by degrees. “And there is in fact a tomb inside a volcano, though I understand you will be spared that particular visit?” 

“I hate this fucking family,” Aulea snarled, throwing her arms up in the air. “Everything has to be skulls and death and melodramatic stupidity with them!” 

“And yet,” Ardyn taunted, watching her slide through a shadowed gap in the rocks, and into a claustrophobically small tunnel going further down, “you _married_ into it.” 

“Not by choice, I didn’t,” Aulea singsonged back sarcastically, heaving herself back onto her feet. 

“One _always_ has a choice,” Ardyn pointed out, if only to bask in her increasing frustration. 

To his surprise, she snorted, rather than attempt bodily harm again. 

“…fair, but my choices were to marry the Crybaby Prince or to kill myself,” she said dryly, one eyebrow arched firmly. “Regis Lucis Caelum was _not_ worth killing myself over.” 

“But Noctis Lucis Caelum is?” Ardyn asked innocently, eyebrows arched in surprise. 

“That,” she replied, utterly unmoved by the taunt, “and telling the entire Astral pantheon where they could stuff their stupid prophecy. _That_ was worth killing myself for.” 

Despite himself, Ardyn found himself chuckling. She was a hateful, monstrous thing, of course, but then, who was he to judge in that regard? He was, in point of fact, contractually obligated to be worse. 

“Shall we, then, Your Majesty?” He asked, as they came to stop before the tall, imposing door that sealed away one of the great terrors buried deep beneath Lucis in the age before the New Wall was raised. “The seal is holding strong, but you and I should be more than enough to break it.” 

“Or,” Aulea said, “hear me out, what if we use the key?” 

Ardyn stared as she pulled out said key out of crystals and light, much the same way she did her sword; buried in an armiger built on magic from the very family she claimed to despise as much as he did. He’d point out the hypocrisy of that, but he’d spent as long as that blasted key had existed looking for the damn thing, in preparation to the fact that… well, they were going to have to deal with said great terrors at some point, and it had stubbornly eluded him. 

“How in the world–“ 

Aulea wiggled her fingers significantly before she turned her back to him and used the key to release the ancient mechanism. The creak of machinery almost obscured her reply, but not quite. 

“Got nimble fingers and the right name,” she said, vanishing the key back into the void with a shrug. “It’s a surprisingly effective combo.” 

* * *

“I didn’t give you the keys.” 

In retrospect, that was probably in the top five of the dumbest things he’d ever said in his life. And his life included two millennia worth of drunken proclamations – drunken on alcohol, rage or madness, he was a connoisseur of all three – and frankly poor life choices, so that was really saying something. 

Sitting behind the wheel, Aulea looked over to give him a pointed look, and then went back to staring at the road ahead. 

“The fact you actually thought I didn’t know how to hotwire a car is almost adorable enough to make up for the bit where you went and exploded on me.” Ardyn could hear her wrinkle her nose. He wasn’t entirely sure how, but he did. “Literally. Into a screeching mass of scourge, fury and black ooze that I had to wash off my hair and my clothes and scrub off from underneath my nails. You _asshole_. You ate twenty nine people when they came to investigate the ruckus you were making, Ardyn. What in the fresh fuck was that and who do I kill so you never do it again?” 

Ardyn considered answering the question sincerely. 

For about an entire tenth of a second. 

Then he shifted to lay more comfortably across the backseat of the car, until he was sprawled as long as he was, and he pulled his hat down to cover his face. 

“One down,” he said, instead, ignoring the fact the sky was dark and the perfectly serviceable and not at all objectionable pink convertible did not, nonetheless, possess the high potency lightbulbs required to brave night without risking daemon encounters. And yet the road was surprisingly daemon free. “Four more to go.” 

One disaster at the time, he decided, was the best way to survive them all. 

* * *

“…I was sort of actually hoping you were kidding about the sewers,” Aulea said, two days later, when Ardyn was recovered enough from his… little episode, and they had made their way to the abandoned Crestholm ruins. 

He peered down into the – seemingly – bottomless pit and wrinkled his nose at the stench. 

“I wasn’t,” he replied, and then walked off the edge with a resigned little shrug. 

Aulea followed only a second later. 

She was dead and he was beyond that; whatever was nesting in the depths, and beyond the door… well, it didn’t really stand a chance. 

That was sort of the point. 

* * *

They got lost in the mines. 

The less was said about the mines, the better. 

* * *

After Daurell – and respectfully and in full confidence, _fuck_ Daurell – they sat atop the massive stone ring and Ardyn found himself sharing a lit cigarette with Aulea – a cigarette she pulled out of a crumpled old carton taken from who knows where – and watching the sun rise in the distance. 

“Only Greyshire left, now,” Ardyn said, watching the light bounce off the edges of each shard of the meteor in the distance. “Lest you’ve changed your mind about the other three.” 

“I haven’t,” Aulea replied and blew out a smoke ring high above their head. “It’ll all be worthless, if they can’t handle even that.” 

“You’re really willing to bet it all on them being strong enough to survive it?” Ardyn said, because even now, despite it all, he still hadn’t managed to wrap his head around her and it annoyed him every time he admitted it. 

“Strength has nothing to do with it,” Aulea said, shrugging. “If it took strength to fix this mess, you’d have fixed it on your own a long time back. No, it’ll be desperation that’ll make a difference. Sink or swim, that’s all there is.” 

“How _motherly_ of you,” Ardyn muttered sarcastically, if nothing else because he still hadn’t found the edge to peel back the façade of rude impertinence and drag out the screaming little girl beneath. 

There was always an edge, and a screaming girl, and he refused to believe she was any different from the literal million stories he’d swallowed up over the years, devoured by scourge and fear and dark and all those indulgences and duties he devoted himself to with equal fervor. He knew people, that’s why he hated them. And she wasn’t special. 

“Dragons build grand, remote nests to protect their brood,” Aulea said, a wry smile tugging at her lips. “Lions teach their cubs all they know, prepare them the best they can. But hyenas…” She snorted. “Hyenas cackle and eat their young in the same breath. Just because. Always get the last laugh, too. Incidentally.” 

“Not very popular though, are they?” Ardyn replied, though the taunt felt, like most taunts against Aulea did, slightly off tilt and not very effective at all. “Incidentally.” 

“That’s the best part,” she laughed, and there was the edge of that mocking cackle there, too, sharp and poignant and terrible. “We really don’t fucking care.” 

* * *

“I hate Ronin.” 

Ardyn laughed, the same drunken, hiccup-y laugh that followed after he devoured the flecks of iridescent dust left behind the ancient daemons they were slaughtering. He always meant to abstain, to refrain from falling into the same pit of madness and hysteria that came with being overwhelmed by the scourge and the torn bits of howling lost souls stuck in it. But he always forgot. And he’d long given up pretending he was good at restraint. He’d had someone, before, who did the restraining for him. He was almost sure, but then, he didn’t always remember. 

There was so much to remember and so little time to care about it all! 

“That wasn’t a Ronin,” he said, after a moment, blinking away the black ichor that dripped down the corner of his eyes after a good feast. “That was– “ 

“It had a sword and it was a fucking asshole,” Aulea interrupted, “it was a Ronin.” She paused, letting her sword slip off her grip and vanish into crystals. “Whatever, it was Ronin-adjacent. Close enough for me to hate it, so there.” 

“You hate _everything_,” Ardyn said, more marveling than accusatory. 

She did that thing she did those scant few times that Ardyn had managed to get within the remote proximity of striking a nerve: she tilted her chin back, jaw set defiantly, and stared him down – his eyes were golden on black, he was sure, corruption and sludge oozing out of every pore, every broken, monstrous shade of him on display – with a sneer, as if daring him to judge her for it. 

“I hate everything worth hating, they all had it coming,” she replied, and then, without warning, reached out to grab a fistful of his coat and used that to haul him back to his feet. “Let’s go.” And then she smiled, just enough to show a shadow of teeth. “I hate the cold.” 

“What,” Ardyn asked, reaching out to hold her hand in place, and not really caring about the miasma slowly pooling at his feet, “pray tell, _the fuck_, is wrong with you?” 

It was an honest question. Very fair, too. They’d been on the road for over a month now, driving across Lucis, destroying the secret pockets of evil that slumbered in its depths for the sake of the events to come. He should have figured it out, by now. She was just… she wasn’t _special_. He must have encountered someone like her, before, often enough he’d long understood the simple gears that turned her mind. 

And yet. 

“My brother was 98% of my impulse control,” Aulea admitted, almost candidly, except her eyes were clear and Ardyn recognized a great liar when he met them, because it took one to know one. “And then I _died_, and he didn’t stop, I just stopped listening, because he’s a fucking idiot who doesn’t know when to stop. Or how.” 

Ardyn licked his lips and felt a semblance of himself returning, settling in, except not fast enough to prevent him from blurting out an awkward truth, as if to challenge such an outrageous lie. 

“My brother tried to kill me,” Ardyn said, factual and underwhelming, almost apropos of nothing. “Once.” 

Aulea snorted that same mocking cackle of hers that was going to honestly haunt Ardyn for however long he lived yet. 

“I mean, _rough_,” she said, and slipped free of his hold with a flick of her wrist and an indolent shrug. “But you’re also a shit, so you probably deserved it.” 

Ardyn snarled a laugh. 

“Let’s. Get out of here.” 

The smug lack of arguing only meant she knew she was right. 

It was maddening. 

* * *

They could tell the precise moment Titan awoke from his slumber and began calling for the Chosen King. 

They could tell because the fox on Ardyn’s shoulders awoke with a loud, feral hiss and every wisp of fur stood up in sharp, erratic waves before it disappeared. They _felt_ the echo of fury stretching past themselves, past the shell of themselves, all the way into that dark, scattered void where their Mistress resided. 

“And so, it begins,” Ardyn said, leaning on the railing of the lookout, staring at the valley below, where the Chosen King and his darling friends were surely about to wake up to an unpleasant surprise. “The beginning of the end! I admit, I expected something more poignant.” 

He turned to gauge Aulea’s reaction, and perhaps get one last taunt in, before they parted ways, but she was already gone. Coincidentally, Ardyn realized, so was the very nice blue car that he’d parked next to, earlier that morning. 

If people around him thought it strange, when he broke down laughing at the absurdity of it all, they were too polite to point it out. He decided, on a whim, that when it came time to swallow the whole world and flood it with darkness and despair, he’d leave Lestallum for last. 

It was only polite. 


	2. musings of a future queen

Some people married for love. Some people married for economic safety. Some people married out of lingering existential fear of growing old and dying alone. There were as many reasons to get married as there were people, and honestly, Luna wasn’t in the business of judging anyone for theirs. 

Personally, if she had a choice, she reckoned she’d still marry Noct, provided Noct, if he had a choice, was still onboard with the idea. They got along reasonably well and felt comfortable enough with each other to have boundaries that were well-worn and easy to navigate. Marriage didn’t seem a terribly scary prospect to either of them, though she couldn’t really venture a guess if it was just the fact they were a good match, or the fact they’d grown up with the knowledge they were going to be matched, regardless, and so they had sort of grown around that notion well enough it didn’t chafe. She loved her fiancé, at the end of the day, and she was fairly confident in the knowledge he loved her right back. He didn’t have to, any more than she did, it just… kind of happened, along the way. 

“We’re outlawing white,” Luna said, looking down at the hem of her dress, which was artfully decorated with mud, but crucially awfully better than her shoes, which she was definitely not thinking about or even deigning to look at because then she’d have to admit that storming away from their campsite to find Noct at the fishing hole across half a mile of recently-rained on marshy land, on heels, might not have been smart, and she didn’t have the emotional fortitude to contemplate such a thing without crying or throwing a trident at her brother’s face, possibly at the same time. “And heels. And skirts. Just so you know.” 

Noct looked up from his seat on a mossy rock by the edge of the water, unruffled by the mud given the fact he was wearing sensible, decent clothes that weren’t neither white nor a dress nor included heels, and arched both eyebrows at her even as he shifted to accommodate her sitting next to him. 

“Are you talking we as in us, as in our future official royal _us_ decreeing things and stuff, or are you talking yourself with the royal we ‘cause you’re pissed, and I should just shut up and not make it worse?” 

Luna folded down to sit next to him with the grace and general poise that was expected of a princess. Then she slid down lower, shifted about until she was resting her head in his lap and stretched out on the rock with little regard for the fact her dress was white and now also green from the moss, she was smearing on it. They’d do laundry once they got to Lestallum and she figured she could feel bad about it then, rather than now. 

Besides, it wasn’t like anyone was watching. 

“My brother… means well,” Luna said, wrinkling her nose slightly. 

“You do keep saying that, yes,” Noct replied, and pointedly did not look down when Luna reached a hand to poke the underside of his chin. “Why are we outlawing white and heels and skirts?” 

“Because they’re dumb and stupid and I just walked half a mile wearing them, which only drove the point home further,” Luna muttered in a sullen tone. “To be fair that wasn’t what I came here to say, it just became the first thing I had to say.” 

Noct chuckled, sound low in the back of his throat, and then sighed as he pulled back the fishing rod, sending it back into the void in a small shower of crystals. He shifted slightly, so he was looking down at Luna, without shuffling her off his lap, which was rather kind of him, all things considered. 

“So,” he said somewhat warily, clearly focusing his attention on her, “what did you want to say?” 

“Well, Prompto, Gladio and Ignis are having a glorious passive aggressive spat on whether they can or should confront you about the outburst at the outpost, and while I realize they are trying their best to balance their duties to you, I remembered that I don’t actually have to worry about that, so I figured I might as well ask you directly,” Luna replied, blinking up at him. “Do you want to talk about what happened at the outpost?” 

Because Noct was a lot of things, and Luna prided herself in knowing more than a few that he’d never let himself show in public, but someone who made small girls cry was not one of them. Noct loved children, went soft and charming for them often enough, that the cynical bit of Luna who never lost track of the ridiculous PR machine that orbited their lives by virtue of the whole… being the future rulers of the country thing, well, she knew damn well they _always_ made a point to have plenty of kids in attendance whenever the Prince was involved. Because few things got their approval ratings to skyrocket quite like capturing Noct interacting with small children on camera. 

And yet. 

“Not really,” Noct muttered, looking away, but before Luna could reply and reassure him it was okay, he added: “She asked about my mum. It caught me off guard.” 

Luna winced, and shifted in place, sitting upright again so she could tug him into a half hug. Noct went into the hug, docile and almost boneless. He’d confided in her, what the notebooks his uncle had given him as a parting gift were, even if he hadn’t actually shown them to her. She respected that, she did, if she had her father’s journals, she wouldn’t be willing to share them with anyone who wasn’t Ravus. But she also knew he was… trying to deal with what those journals said, and not always succeeding. 

All Luna remembered of her father was his scent and the way he used to brush hair out of her face. She knew his face from paintings and old archived photographs that had survived the escape from Tenebrae – she did not allow herself to question when Tenebrae has stopped being _home_ in her internal monologue – but it was both solid and fading. An unchanging, settled figure, eroded by time perhaps, but nothing more. Luna’s love for her father was more theoretical than anything else, at this point, extrapolated from memories that weren’t painful so much as faint. 

She reckoned it was because after her father died, she’d been allowed his memory, but Noct hadn’t had that privilege. 

He’d never really known her, or even had anyone to talk about her. The Queen was one of those taboo topics in the Citadel that wasn’t explicitly coded as such, but functionally indistinguishable from it. There were no paintings of her, no pictures, nothing. And then his uncle had sent him off into the world with a bag full of faded, yellow pages full of her at her most uncensored and unrepentant. Suddenly Noct had a voice to go with the name, even if he didn’t know what she sounded like at all, and from what he’d shared with Luna, here and there, as they slowly made their way across Lucis, it wasn’t exactly a nice voice at all. 

It was a lot to deal with, to be honest. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay, I just… no one ever asks about my mum, so I don’t have a canned statement prepared, you know?” He leaned into the hug, tucking his face against her throat. “Then again, you don’t make small children cry if they ask about your dad, so maybe I’m just an asshole.” 

“To be fair,” Luna replied, resting her chin atop his head, “small children are more likely to ask me about _Prompto’s_ dad, than my own.” Noct huffed a snort against her skin, so she smiled wryly up at the sky. “You’re not an asshole, Noct.” She paused. “Maybe just a little bit of a dick, that’s all. Circumstantially.” 

Noct snorted and bounced his head up, bumping up against her chin. 

“You can’t say _dick_, you’re the Oracle,” he said, a twinge of laughter in his voice, “it was on the PR handbook and everything.” 

“You _actually_ read the PR handbook,” Luna replied, perhaps a bit more doubtful than was strictly necessary. 

“Sure I did,” Noct retorted, suitably offended by said doubt. It lasted a grand total of ten seconds. “Well, I read the briefing notes. You know, the summary digest Ignis made. But it was there! Underlined, even. It was right under the three paragraphs of things I am absolutely not allowed to do when a camera other than Prompto’s might be rolling.” 

Luna pulled back so she could look at him in the eye, and then, once she was sure Noct was looking, made a point to look left and right and up and then back at him, right in the eye. 

“_Dick_,” she said, in the whispery tones of one sharing a secret. 

As she’d hoped, he burst out laughing, soft, amused chuckles as he pulled her close into a hug again. They stayed there, holding each other and simply enjoying the warmth of it, for a long while. Eventually, as their breathing reached a soft, stable lull, Noct let out a sigh. 

“Are they really having a spat?” He asked, wincing. “The guys?” 

“You know how Prompto gets when he thinks you need space and Gladio and Ignis feel you don’t,” Luna said, which was a very polite way of saying _yes_. Noctis winced, so she reached a hand to pat his wrist. “It did get a bit derailed when Ravus misunderstood one of Prompto’s jabs as being aimed at me, though. That was about the time I figured out I could just come here and check on you.” 

“Wow, you abandoned your brother to Prompto’s mercy for me? I don’t know if I’m touched or horrified,” Noct said, eyes glinting with amusement. 

Luna shrugged. 

“To be perfectly honest, I’m banking on Prompto choosing to climb up a tree to escape the ensuing tirade, _again_, instead of climbing up my brother like a tree and then strangling him to make him stop.” 

“That’s not an unfair assumption to make, considering Prompto is under strict orders to not murder anyone, but specially your brother,” Noct admitted and paused for a moment, significantly, “you’re welcome,” and then he smiled a little wryly. “We should probably head back, now. Ignis will be crossed if we’re late for breakfast.” 

Luna watched him stand up and blinked. 

“You did not actually order Prompto not to murder my brother,” she said, taking the hand Noct offered and hauling herself back upright onto the muddied pair of shoes that had certainly seen worse days. 

“I really did,” Noct said, as they started walking back to their campsite, holding hands. “Explicitly. I thought he was seriously considering it after the chocobo farm visit and the whole… you know.” 

“Look at the bright side,” Luna said after a moment, because truth be told she wouldn’t entirely blame Prompto given how proficient Ravus could be at sticking his foot so far down his throat he ended up chewing on his own knee. “Once we get to Lestallum, the PR tour will be over and then it’ll just be seven months of camping and nature and not freaking out and stressing about what kind of impression we’re giving our future subjects. It’ll be fine.” 

“You’re just saying that because as soon as the PR tour is over, you won’t have to look Oracle-y all the time,” Noct pointed out remorselessly, “I know how it is, you’re marrying me for my _royal color scheme_.” 

“Oh no, you’ve seen right through me,” Luna deadpanned, though she knew for a fact her deadpan wasn’t very good because she could never stop herself from huffing a tiny laugh at the end of a sentence, whenever she tried. “Fifteen years of clever subterfuge, _ruined_.” 

“Look, I wouldn’t be offended if you wanted me for my crown,” Noct went on, mouth twitching into that mischievous half smile of his that only came out when he thought he was being clever, “and let’s leave aside the fact that _we_ are supposed the Crystal Kings and Queens, but you family has the actual crown made of three solid pounds of the stuff-“ 

“It’s actually five pounds,” Luna interjected, wrinkling her nose. “I tried it on for the last dress fitting, and I need you to know that if you want to wear it, it’s yours.” 

“God, no,” Noct blurted out, after a significant pause where he seemed to actually give the notion due thought. “Anyway, the point is, if you wanted me for my crown, I would get it. Our crown is way better than yours, at least for your neck anyway. But you just want me for my _colors_. And the really offensive thing is how much better you carry them than me.” 

“I mean, if it comes to that, _you_ could marry _me_ instead,” Luna teased, “you become a Nox Fleuret and take on my royal colors, then.” 

Noct made a point to look down at her dress, which had collected a dozen new stains, along the walk from the pond, on top of the ones she’d already been purposefully ignoring. 

He snorted. 

“Point taken, yes.” 

In the distance, they saw the woods thin out around the campsite. The sky was bluer than orange by then, as the sun moved past those crucial moments where it was blinding and instead became comforting. Noct stopped abruptly, though, not letting go of Luna’s hand. 

“You know we don’t have to, right?” He asked, brow furrowed and eyes intently meeting hers. “The whole dumb marriage thing. I know it’s important and why it’s important, but if you don’t want to do it, we don’t have to.” 

Luna smiled, and stepped closer, raising his hand up to her face so she could lean against it. 

“Do you?” 

Noct gave her that look he got, sometimes, when he tried to find words and realized they weren’t the ones he wanted, and he didn’t know how to get the right ones. But he didn’t look away, like he always did, when his tongue stumbled in his mouth and he felt awkward. 

“I do,” he said, and the words were rough and not very graceful, but all the more sincere because of it. 

And when he leaned in to kiss her, she basked in it, because it was theirs, solely theirs, without cameras or escorts or anything else intruding. They kissed and for a moment there, they were just… two people in love, without protocol hanging like a looming threat in the back of their mind, and it didn’t matter if her dress was functionally ruined before ten in the morning and his fingers still smelled of bait and she was taller than him, wearing heels. It didn’t matter. 

Then she felt it, a sharp, forceful tug at her lungs, from somewhere behind her navel, brutally stealing all air away from her. It felt terrible, but even as she swayed, she stayed upright. 

Noct did not. 

Noct made a hissing noise of pain, letting go of her face to clutch desperately at his head, and promptly collapsed on the floor. 

“Noct!” 

They were close enough to the campsite her voice echoed, and soon enough, there was her brother, and Ignis and Gladio and Prompto, rushing through, asking questions she couldn’t hear because the booming, wordless pull kept echoing through the sudden, cavernous emptiness of her chest. She fought it instinctively, viciously, and the trident was there, in her hand, clenched in tight fingers as she struggled to find her footing, but it was too much. 

She fell. 

* * *

“_From the deep, the Archean calls_.” 

Luna’s eyes snapped into focus, as she recognized that voice, the whistling hiss of dark she’d only heard once before, their first night truly outdoors, sleeping in the safety of a haven and coming face to face with the darkness devouring the world in a lazy yawn. 

She found herself lying in bed in a spacious, brightly lit room, still wearing the muddied dress, and as soon as she was fully conscious of herself, immediately assaulted by the low drumming deep in her bones, so loud it made her nauseous enough to feel bile start crawling up her throat. 

“You,” Luna said, clenching her teeth and summoning the trident to her hand, golden light coursing through her, filling out the void and pushing out the thunderous clamor trying to drown her out. 

The man – he looked more like a man, now, in broad daylight, though she didn’t even know that was possible, not for him – was leaning against the dresser, long legs crossed at the ankle and face half obscured by the hat on his head. 

“_Yet on deaf ears the God’s tongue falls, the King made to kneel, in pain, he crawls,_” he went on, voice musical enough to be pleasant, were she not keenly aware of what, rather than who she was dealing with. “Fascinating things, nursery rhymes,” he said, pushing himself away from the dresser and scoffing a laugh when her grip on her trident tightened and she pointed it at her. “None of that, dear, you hardly have the time for it.” 

And then he smiled a grimace at her, as if remembering an old joke she was not privy to. 

“What do you mean by that?” Luna asked, slowly sliding off the bed and back on her feet, keeping the distance as he approached her. 

“Your Chosen King lies in a bed next door,” the man said, head tilted sideways so his hair and his hat hid half his face, “writhing and withering away.” He chuckled. “It was quite the harrowing procession into the city, a day of rejoicing hushed into frantic murmurs. And yet, no one knows why.” 

“If the Archean is calling for him, all he needs to do is heed the call,” Luna said, licking her lips. 

The man smiled some more, wide, taunting. 

It made her want to stab him with the trident, for all she knew that would be a very, very stupid thing to do. 

“If he heeds the call, he will die.” He chuckled. “He’s cursed, you see, crippled from within. Until it’s removed, if he attempts to commune with the divine, he will die. And should the Chosen King die… well, that puts you all in a rather precarious position, doesn’t it?” 

The urge to stab rose three steps on the scale, and so Luna swallowed hard, trying to force it down and out of mind. 

“What did you do to him?” She asked, as calm and collected as she could, eyes narrowed and jaw set. 

“Oh, nothing at all,” he said, laughing that grating, mocking laugh she was sure was going to haunt her for eternity. “In point of fact, I misspoke. Apologies for that, he’s not cursed so much as _blessed_. Go see for yourself, dear, there’s nothing but Light tightly wrapped around him.” He curtsied at her; arms spread wide. “I’ll be in the outlook, when you’re done.” 

And then he melted into shadows that passed through the window and out into the city without resistance, a display of power meant to remind her who he was. As if she could forget. 

Luna took exactly one minute to compose herself and pushed back down the hysterical cry stuck somewhere under her throat. This wasn’t the time for primordial fear eating at her soul until she collapsed. When she was sure she could walk, she ventured outside the room, bare feet oblivious to the cold floor, as she found her brother sitting on a chair right outside her door. 

“Lunafreya,” Ravus said, reaching out for her and, as always, stopping short of touching her, hands hovering over her shoulders. “Sister, are you alright? They said- “ 

“Shh,” Luna said, reaching a hand to gently press her fingers on his lips, and then letting the gesture turn into a caress against the side of his face. “I’m fine. But I’m afraid Noctis might not be.” She swallowed hard. “I need you to stand with me, on this. Oh, Ravus, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I need to know you stand with me.” 

“Always,” he said, leaning in to press his forehead against hers, gentle, ever so gentle, so afraid of hurting others, her brother, he never knew to watch his words half as well as he did his hands. 

“Thank you,” she whispered, and meant it as she tilted her face and pressed her lips to his cheek. “I need to see him; I must make sure. And then…” 

“One step at the time,” Ravus said, blueish grey eyes going sharp, tactical. 

He was good at doing what needed doing, her brother, she valued his ability to structure things in a way she couldn’t, even when he didn’t know what was happening. Even when _she_ didn’t know what was happening. 

“Right.” 

Noct was lying a bed next to the room she had woken up in, just as the Stranger had said he was. That was not a reassuring knowledge, much less when she subtly pried and Gladio gladly informed her of the fact he’d stood guard for almost a full day so far, and no one had been allowed to see Noct, but Ignis, Prompto, a few doctors, and now herself and her brother. They hadn’t yet sent word to Insomnia, however, because Gladio wanted them to avoid speculation as much as possible. 

Noct looked deadly pale, so still she had to focus to see his chest move in time with the slow, lethargic rhythm of his breathing. 

“They, the doctors, I mean, they don’t know what’s wrong with him,” Prompto said, sitting on the edge of the bed and standing his own kind of guard, brow furrowed. 

Of course he was there, sitting the closest. Gladio and Ignis had duties to fulfill, roles to play and protocol to follow. Prompto served Noct the only way he could, without Noct noticing: by not serving him at all, and instead focusing on being his friend, above all. 

“I don’t think it’s something they’d know how to treat,” Luna said slowly, keenly aware she was still holding onto her trident and, having come face to face with the horrific possibilities that the nameless Stranger represented, not in a hurry to let go of it, just yet. “I need to…” 

“You are the Oracle,” Ignis said, standing by the window, brow furrowed and expression stern, “we couldn’t put our trust in anyone else, Your Highness.” 

She’d only just managed to convince him to drop the honorifics in private, she thought somewhat distractedly. But of course, Ignis was the sort of person who retreated into formalities, when things got difficult. Noct had told her so, many times before. Now she got to see it happen, in real time. 

_Right_ , she thought, staring at her fiancé with a mixture of dread and determination that sat uncomfortably solid in the pit of her stomach. _No pressure._

Luna swallowed hard, again, steadying herself, then raised a hand, palm facing Noct, and concentrated. 

If there were any remnants of the scourge, any sort of darkness at all, she’d be able to tell. 

She’d know. 

_Knew_ . 

“Oh,” Luna said, knees promptly giving up without warning, until she was sitting on the floor and the trident had slipped off her slack fingers, collapsing into flecks of light and disappearing. 

She looked up at the men who rushed to help her back to her feet and winced. 

“_Shit._” 

* * *

“That took you less than I expected!” The Stranger said, leaning on the side of his bright pink convertible. “You’re very efficient, my de- “ 

“Lunafreya!” Ravus cried out, when Luna gave up pretenses and decked the man straight across the jaw as hard as she could. 

A normal man might have died from that, she knew. Blood of the Oracle coursed through her veins, and with it came the gifts of such blood. It wasn’t only her brother whose strength could be monstrous, if needed. But the Stranger didn’t die. He shuffled back upright without acknowledging the fact she’d felt bone snap under her knuckles and instead gave her another of those mocking smiles that made the hair stand on end at the back of her neck. 

“We’re ready to go,” Luna said, and very pointedly ignored the urge to shake her hand, because it turned out that punching actually hurt, and not just the person that was being punched. “Please, lead the way.” 

The man stared at her, pondering, and then laughed. 

“Oh very well,” he said, and laughed as if nothing at all had happened, “I shall be waiting for you at the gas station outside of town. It’s a long way, so make sure you’re topped off, before we go.” He smiled and for a moment there, she saw the black ichor pooling in his eyes, like tears about to be shed. “Wouldn’t want to let the sun go down on you, while we’re still on the way.” 

Luna watched him go, gait swaying a bit with each step, like the prelude to a dance or a performance, and found in herself the strength to not crumple on the ground and burst into tears. He was still terrifying, him and everything he represented. But now she knew for a fact there was something worse than him. 

A lot, lot worse. 


	3. aulea's journal [i]

Do you know how cheesy it feels to open this with _if you're reading this, then I'm dead_? That's... B-movie levels of bad. And yet! Here we are, Noct. 

If you're reading this, I am, in fact, dead. And have been for a long time, if Cor managed to not get himself killed too early, and he delivered this when I told him to, instead of you inheriting it because he got punted by an overgrown shrimp too many. 

_ (If, in fact, you are not Noct and you just happened to find these stashed on a garage sale somewhere, stop reading right now or I will fucking haunt you til your dying day. Set it on fire and go prepare for the end of the world as you know it, if we’ve failed our preparations, you’re now on a timer to become daemon bait and really don’t have time to spare to riffle through this. Just… go and beg whatever god you believe in to be merciful, even though they won’t be.) _

I like to think everything went according to plan, even though I'm terrible at plans, so I'm sitting down and writing this in a dingy caravan somewhere in Duscae, ignoring the fact you're boxing with my spleen for fun. 

(As an aside, promise me, Noct, if you ever get a girl pregnant, you'll be nice to them. Doesn't matter if you marry them or not, be nice to them. Let them sleep in and eat all they want. Being pregnant is awful and everyone feels entitled to poke your belly and tell you everything you're doing wrong. Your ankles swell to the size of grapefruit and everything makes you nauseous and food tastes funny and all you really want is to maybe walk off a window on a third floor. Be nice to that girl, if you get her pregnant. Be nice to **_ALL_** the girls you get pregnant. Doesn't matter when or how. Just promise to be good to them.) 

Speaking of pregnancy and bad plans... I had a plan, you know? When I got pregnant with you. I never really wanted to be Queen. I never really wanted to be... well, any of the things I ended up being. I always ended up getting talked into corners and having to make the best out of things. Your Grandfather was the worst of the lot, Seer bastard that he was. He saw the future and refused to consider it could change even a little. He said I had to marry his son, because the Chosen King was destined to be the fruit of our union— 

That's you, by the way, spoilers if you haven't been told, which, knowing your father, you probably haven't, you are in fact The Chosen King (the capital letters are required) and the whole point of this is that there's this really fucking stupid prophecy about it, but I'll go into detail about that later, **_ANYWAY_** – and... I knew your Grandfather. 

He and my dad were best friends. Which I guess means your grandfather and your grandfather were partners in crime. Heh. Anyway, I knew him, Mors. The only way I could get away with not marrying Regis was to kill myself and... that seemed a bit much. No offense to your dad, but he wasn’t worth killing myself over. I guess that’s the first lesson I’ll impart, really: no one is worth killing yourself over, not even several someones, when dangled dramatically as blackmail. Fuck that. There’s always a third option and that third option often involves separating someone’s head from their shoulders. If they’re stupid enough to try and hold your loved ones hostage, they weren’t using that head anyway, so it’s not like they’ll miss it. 

Anyway, I couldn’t kill your grandfather, ‘cause he was dying anyway, and I didn’t kill your dad because he was an idiot who didn’t even get what was happening, so I married him. Even though he was a dumb, heartbroken moron who just... wanted to be left alone, really. He's a good man, your dad. Not half bad as a King, either. Or at least he's not, right now. Maybe he went mad and stupid after I died. It's entirely possible, he never takes anything well. That's why Cor has to babysit his dumb ass all the time, it's ridiculous. 

It's not your fault, though, if he’s gone mad and turned into a tyrant. Sure as hell ain’t my fault either. People justify shitty choices by looking for someone to blame and somehow always miss the person who made those choices in the first place. Still, I _think_ Regis is mostly strong enough to not go mad with grief. He’s a lot stronger than he looks, your dad, but I’ve been wrong about him before. 

The point _is,_ I never wanted to marry your dad, and... when I got pregnant with you, I thought I could... I don't know, deliver you and fake my own death and be free. Some might call it running away from things. Some are fucking idiots who don't know shit. 

The truth is, I was never going to be in the picture, with you. It just... wasn't for the reasons I thought it would be. And, to be perfectly honest here - and why wouldn't I, I'm dead and if anyone has a right to know the truth from me, it's you – you're probably better off this way. You were raised by Cor and Regis... probably Sylvia, too, because old Tsunami Lady can't see a fucking clusterfuck in the making and not stick, not her nose, but her entire goddamn head, into it. And... they're good people. They're pompous, dramatic idiots, sure. But they're the good kind of idiots. The sort that would love a child for no other reason than it shared their blood. 

I mean, you don't share Cor's blood – ...and that's another spoiler, I guess, you are not at all related to Cor! Surprise! Neither I am, that's... a long story, I'll write about it later – but my point is! I don't know what my point is, really, I'm sort of winging the script here. But. They loved you and were good people and raised you to be... well, like them. And that's all well and good, I think. I wouldn't have done a very good job of that. 

But I think it's important you know why they raised you, instead of me. Because yeah, I had a plan and I was going to leave you with your father to inherit your crown and your sparkly magical destiny that required me to marry the big baby you call dad. But I didn't. 

Noct? You need to understand that. I did, in fact, kill myself in a very roundabout, awkward way that no one but Cor really knows about – and, bless his heart, he really knows way less than he thinks he does – but it wasn't to run away. 

Noct, you've been raised among dragons and lions all your life. They taught you to be just and brave and kind. And that's... that's good. Great, even. I hope these past years have been happy. That the life you've led has given you joy and peace and certainty of who you are. 

But you're not a dragon, or a lion. 

You're a hyena, just like me. 

And the reason I died was to buy you a chance to **_be_** that hyena. 

My name is Aulea Lycyaena, daughter of Tristan Lycyaena, and I hope that, when the time comes, you choose to be Noctis Lycyaena, and show teeth, instead of meekly letting yourself be led to slaughter. 


	4. pitioss and the truth

“Relax, kiddo, I’m here.” 

Prompto barked a nervous laugh and very carefully didn’t twitch as he held the bike steady, flanking the Regalia as they sped down the highway. He tilted his head to the side and caught a glimpse of Crowe, helmet down so he couldn’t see the smirk he heard in her voice, flanking the other side. 

“I know, I know,” he said, shrugging and turning his eyes back to the road and, most importantly, the ridiculous pink convertible speeding ahead of them. “I’m chill.” 

“You’ve never been chill a day in your life, and you know it,” Crowe snorted, “and I’ve known you long enough to make that statement with absolute confidence.” 

Prompto’s grip on the handle tightened on reflex as he snorted back, startled, but he managed to control the bike so the little twitch in his driving was probably not noticed. Then again, everyone in the Regalia was focused on Noct and the way his unconscious body was sprawled against Luna’s side. 

They’d been on the road three days now, one night spent at the caravans in Burbost waystation, and one night in the small hotel in Old Lestallum, both paid for by their guide, who smiled entirely too much for Prompto’s comfort and who Luna clearly didn’t like. Luna liked everyone, in Prompto’s experience, so that was a definite red flag. At least they had Crowe with them, though. Crowe was strong and powerful and eminently reassuring to have around. It wasn’t that Prompto didn’t trust Gladio and the others to keep Noct safe, really. But if the Stranger leading them was someone Luna didn’t like and was intimidated by, well… it was time for heavy-handed solutions. If worse came to worse, Prompto knew Crowe could level a small city if she put her mind to it. Hopefully, that would be more than enough to deal with their smarmy guide if he turned out to be… well, something else. 

“You’ve ever been this close to Ravatogh?” Prompto asked, instead of acknowledging Crowe’s ribbing. 

Their communication line was secure, and it kept them company during the long stretches of road. Sometimes Prompto felt terrible about it, having someone to talk to freely while he knew everyone in the Regalia was stuck in terse, wary silence. Then he reminded himself he was literally just doing his job, and reckoned Noct could judge him for it, once he was feeling better. 

Because he would be getting better, obviously. 

“Once,” Crowe said, in that carefully casual tone of hers that made Prompto realize he’d stepped on a nerve. “Back when you were a little snotwad, and the war ended the first time. Your dad took us all the way to the summit, guarding the Oracle. Then, you know. Fan. Shit. Usual results. I do remember seeing the valley of volcanic pools that Mr. Creepo was talking about last night, but I couldn’t tell you if there was really anything else there.” 

“You can’t call him Mr. Creepo,” Prompto snickered, desperately trying to keep himself from laughing outright. “Crowe!” 

“If he doesn’t want to be Mr. Creepo, he could share his name. But you know he won’t.” She paused, significantly. “Because he’s a creep.” 

“He’s a creep endorsed by Luna—Princess Lunafreya,” Prompto corrected himself, studiously ignoring the snicker across the line. “Royalty commands, we obey.” 

“Not Queen yet,” Crowe pointed out, “though she doesn’t much care about that, does she?” 

Prompto licked his lips and kept his eyes on the road. 

“She’s worried about Noct,” he said, almost conciliatory. “We all are.” 

“Still not the King I serve,” Crowe insisted, “but I guess dire times require dire sacrifice… shit.” She revved her bike loudly. “Arbas.” 

“Shit,” Prompto echoed, as he accelerated to match her pace, overtaking their guide and roaring their motors loud enough to announce their presence. 

Arbas were a common sight in Cleigne, giant, lumbering herds that mostly minded their own business until they decided to stick right in the middle of a road and make themselves a nuisance. Prompto didn’t like them for the same reason he didn’t like anaks and other four-legged, long-necked animals that populated the Lucian countryside: they were unrepentant assholes most of the time, and he still somehow felt like shit if he ended up killing one. Hopefully, he and Crowe would be enough to scare off the herd away from the road. He was having a tense enough day to add ‘murdered baby animals for obstructing the road’ to the list of reasons why he was going to have a glorious meltdown the moment Noct got better. 

Prompto had the sinking, terrible feeling that it was easier than normal, to scare off the arbas, but he didn’t tell Crowe so, because he didn’t want actual confirmation of that fact. 

* * *

Crowe stayed behind with their eerily smiling guide, when they reached their destination and he insisted he could not accompany them further. 

They left the Regalia behind, as well, considering the mountain trail towards their _actual_ destination was far too narrow and unpredictable for a car. Their grinning, creepy, annoying asshole of a guide made a cheerful quip about the fact they’d only be able to take the car with them, if they could figure out how to make it fly, and only Luna’s terse reply thanking him for his guidance so far managed to prevent any of the others from saying something unwise. 

Sure, they had spent almost four days following the man all the way to the feet of Ravatogh, because Luna said they should and it would lead them to understand what was wrong with Noct, but it was also very, very clear that Luna did not like their guide one bit. More than once, Prompto had caught her staring at him in a way that made him worry she was one bad twitch from flinging her trident at his head. And the fact she _didn’t_ was what worried him, really. Because the way she looked at him that that edge of animal panic, of fight because flight is not an option anymore, that wasn’t particularly encouraging. Prompto was probably the only one other than Ravus that knew what Luna was actually capable of, if pushing came to shoving, and that knowledge, combined with her clear apprehension when it came to dealing with their guide, sat awkward and uncomfortable in the pit of his stomach, waiting for the chance to break out into full-blown panic. 

When Noct got better, Prompto decided, he was going to cry for an entire week, as a treat. 

There were a lot of monsters they had to fight through and that made progress even slower, considering Gladio was stuck carrying Noct, which meant Luna and Ravus were focused keeping them safe and out of the way. Prompto knew better than to imply Ignis was anything less than lethal when he needed to be, and he knew he had enough explosives stashed away to really bring in the heat if necessary, but that _wasn’t_ what either of them were best suited for. It was somewhat sobering to realize they just… weren’t well-prepared to function in Noct’s absence. They had plans and contingencies if something happened that incapacitated him momentarily, but this… Noct was essentially in _stasis_ from what Luna had managed to explain, awkward and unsure. He wasn’t asleep or unconscious, even though that was what he looked like. 

Prompto reckoned that once Noct got better – and of course he was going to get better, they weren’t going to stop until he was – they had to sit down and have a good, long strategy session and figure out how to handle this kind of thing long term. It was embarrassing how badly they couldn’t really function without their Prince greasing the gears, metaphorically speaking. 

It was partly because of how slow they were that the four-mile walk had stretched so long, and the sun had started to sink in the horizon, yet they still weren’t anywhere near close to their objective. 

Not that anyone but Luna seemed to know what their objective even was. 

But it was getting dark, and fast, and they were all starting to get antsy, because night only meant one thing, and it was the one thing they had somehow managed to avoid fighting at all, thus far: daemons. Prompto knew from experience that fighting daemons _sucked_. They were sneaky and vicious and nothing really _worked_ the way it should, so it was always a chore. It was always a gamble. As crippled as their fighting prowess was at the moment, with Noct completely out of the picture, and how awkward they all were handling it, Prompto dreaded to find out how exactly they would fare against a proper daemon fight. 

So of course, because nothing could ever go right, apparently, the thing that eventually crawled out of the ground wasn’t a black giant or some bombs or even a red giant. All of that, he reckoned they could take if they got their shit together in time. No. 

They got an Aramusha instead. 

“Oh that’s bad,” Prompto said, as the creature assumed its powerful stance, swinging its sword threateningly and dispelling the sulfur fog all around it, like it was creating its very own fighting arena. “That’s real bad,” Prompto giggled manically, and caught from the back of his eye the precise moment Gladio pressed Noct’s near boneless body into Luna’s hands. 

Well, that was something, he supposed. 

The Aramusha leaped and they braced for impact: Luna held Noct close, as Ravus stood before her, ready to shield them from the incoming threat as best he could. Gladio and Ignis fell into position, running straight ahead in a well-practiced pattern, ready to intercept. Prompto fell back, putting distance to get into a good snipping position and exchanged his handgun for something bigger that packed a bit more of an overkill, like his favorite bazooka. 

It wasn’t a Yojimbo, which Prompto was almost sure they could take more or less on their own, and the thought sat heavy and awkward in the back of his throat as his mouth filled with panicked spit, wishing keenly he hadn’t asked Crowe to stay back with the pink convertible creep. 

However, the monster’s katana met resistance far too soon. 

Metal chirred against metal, clashing loudly against an unyielding force as it was caught against the edge of an opposing blade. The blade attached to the sword held by the hand of the woman who warped into its path and stopped it in its tracks. The crystal residue of the warp was a frighteningly familiar blue, caught in her hair as it settled down her shoulders, a very familiar shade of black, albeit much longer than Noct’s. 

She looked over her shoulder, just long enough to place the pieces on the board, and then shifted her wrist in the same careless way Cor did, forcing the opponent’s blade sideways and away, and it unbalanced the Aramusha the same way it always unbalanced all of Cor’s opponents, leaving the Aramusha wide open for her fist to slam into its chest. There was the residual glimmer of a spell caught in her fingers as she shook her wrist, watching impassively as the Aramusha was violently thrown back by the seemingly simple attack. She then ran her index and middle finger along the edge of her sword, spreading that glimmer along the blade, before she threw out an almost playful slash in the direction of the recovering Aramusha, and they could _feel_ the force of that, almost see it in the way the fog was cut as it advanced like an invisible freight train straight at the Aramusha. 

She turned away from it before it hit, ignoring the quiet _pop_ of the magic making contact, and smiled down at them as she twirled her blade back into a terrifyingly familiar black sheath. Behind her, lightning hammered down upon the Aramusha, but without the familiar purple echo of Ramuh’s power, or the lilac hues of the King’s own brand of magic. It was white and bright and terrible, and it consumed the screeching daemon as it writhed in place, almost like it was begging for mercy. But the light was unrelenting, over and over again, until all that was left was fait soot on the rocks where the Aramusha had stood, not even the iridescent dust that usually followed a daemon’s demise. 

“You’re late, children,” she said, blue eyes pale and sharp and _frighteningly familiar_, as she threw her sword away into the void with the casual flick of wrist that implied deep familiarity with the use of an armiger. “Don’t you know it’s dangerous to travel at night?” 

The smile really was not reassuring at all. 

“Who are you?” Luna demanded, before anyone could say anything. 

There was something very dangerous in her voice, not the least helped by the fact she laid Noctis down on the ground and stood up to full height, summoning her trident to her hand. 

“A helping hand,” the stranger said, smile melting into a taunting smirk. “Mostly I’m here to make sure you don’t fuck up.” 

“So you know about—” Luna began, and then stopped, looking back at Noct. 

“The seal on him?” The stranger laughed. “Kid, I _put_ it on him. Of course I know.” 

“Why?” Luna asked, fingers clenched tight on her trident, until her knuckles were white and Prompto wondered if they were about to witness that temper Noct insisted she had that no one had ever actually seen in public. 

“Because he is The Chosen King, and he would have been claimed by the Astrals, forced into their covenant without it,” the woman replied, raising a hand up and conjuring a ball of light into it. She clenched her fingers closed around it, and then flung her arm back and away, as if to scatter the light. Dozens of lantern-like lights appeared, framing a road across the sulfur pits and up towards a hill in the distance. “The One I serve would rather he knew what he was getting into, first.” 

“If he is the Chosen King,” Luna began, swallowing hard. 

“Which he is,” the stranger interrupted, amused. 

“Then it is his duty to forge the covenants and lead us all unto light,” Luna went on, shifting her hold on her trident into something more overtly threatening, holding it with both hands. “As Oracle, I am duty bound to support him in his task.” 

“That you are, little girl,” the stranger agreed, sticking her hands into the pockets of her jeans. She was wearing torn jeans and a sleeveless red shirt, and it looked strange for how mundane it was. “You can choose to do that, you know? My Employer is pretty big on Free Will and all, but the point is that neither of you were given a choice about it, much less explained _why_ you’re being asked to do what you are.” 

“The Gods—” 

“—are assholes, mostly,” she went on, grinning. “But don’t take my word for it.” She raised her hand and showed three fingers, wiggling them significantly. “The lost history of Eos is preserved in three remnants of Solheim. I want you to go into them, and witness what truly happened, two thousand years ago. What precipitated the coming of the Scourge and the need for Bahamut’s Crystal prophecy. Only then, after you’ve learned the truth of things, I will release the seal on him, and you will be free to choose what to do next.” 

“And if we don’t?” Luna asked, eyes narrowed. 

The woman shrugged. 

“That _is_ a choice, so the Big Honcho is willing to let you make it, but spoilers, _you’ll die_.” She shrugged again, harder. “The time is ripe for the coming of the Chosen King, the Endless Night is not far behind and _you_ of all people should know, girl, what comes with it.” 

“Who, rather,” Luna said tersely, licking her lips. “He’s been… almost helpful, matter of fact.” 

The woman laughed, a loud, cackle-like laugh that made Prompto’s hair stand on end along the back of his neck. And from the look of Ignis and Gladio, they shared the sentiment. 

“He’s not so bad as long as you remember he’ll get his job done, nothing personal about it,” the woman said, eyebrows arched tauntingly. “He’s like you and me, really. An idiot who made his own choices and now has to live with them. If you can call that living, anyway.” 

“He’s not exactly glowing endorsement of this choice you keep talking about,” Luna ventured, voice dry. 

“Not gonna lie to you, girl,” the woman replied, “he chose a pretty shitty lot, and you could too. But at least he knew exactly what he was choosing, when he made the call.” The smile turned mocking again. “Instead of being groomed from birth to take on a role that someone else chose for you.” 

The silence stretched, long and tense and terrible. 

“So what do we have to do?” Luna asked, jaw set and expression fierce. “To dig out this history you mentioned?” 

The woman grinned. 

“Happy to show you the way.” 

* * *

“So you’re Cor’s kid, huh?” 

Prompto missed his step, choked on spit and then fell into the void. 

Then he felt the nauseous feeling of a hook digging into his bellybutton and pulling him away, and the next thing he knew, he was sitting at the start of the room, looking dazed. It made the woman laugh her obnoxious, terrifying, cackling laugh. 

Pitioss was the worst. 

The structure had a spell built into the very foundations of it, that prevented them from summoning any weapons or using any magic. It also fucked with gravity and perception, and it was dark and eerie and _not great_. Their guide – they’d asked for a name, well, Luna had demanded it, but all she’d done was smile – informed them what they sought was buried in its depths, at the end of the labyrinth. On the upside, at least, no matter how much they failed the runs, they couldn’t die. The same magic in the air caught them and delivered them back to the last solid ground they’d stepped on. 

Prompto was having a really hard time not comparing the whole thing to those stupidly hard platformer video games that Tredd liked so much, and he only refrained because the others were having a worst time of it than he was. He was nimble and half his job depended on his ability to make dumb leaps of faith and parkour his way around enemy strongholds. Pitioss was challenging, but not impossible. But Gladio had gotten stuck at the beginning jumps, and Ignis had made it as far as the giant skull room – there was a giant skull room, Prompto wanted a pay raise and possibly enough beer to put himself into a coma – so now he was the only one left still trying to get through the labyrinth. Ravus and Luna had stayed at the entrance, not willing to leave Noct unconscious and alone in a creepy goddamn maze like this. 

“He talks a lot about you,” she said, sitting with her legs dangling off the edge of the platform he was trying his honest best to get to. “About you and your sister. Never would have peg that idiot to have kids, mind, but hey. Here we are.” 

“You don’t look old enough to know Cor,” Prompto pointed out, standing up and shaking his arms to release some of the tension and prepare for another attempt at crossing the chasm before him. “You’re what… twenty?” 

“Flatterer,” she replied, laughing, “I’m a bit older than that. But I suppose the old lion looks worse for wear than I do. It’s what happens when you have a conscience.” 

“Huh,” Prompto said, but then, before he could keep up the line of inquiry – he was a saboteur, he dug out the truth from things, kicking and screaming if he had to – he took one good look at the next room. “Aw, fuck.” 

“Yep,” his companion said, and then showed him where to go. “It feels like that, sometimes.” 

Prompto promised himself another extra week of crying, once the whole thing was done, and then took the leap. 

* * *

There was a dragon in the bottom of the abyss. 

Prompto was sure it had a proper name – in the back of his mind, he heard Harit’s voice, dry and unimpressed, explaining what a _Jormungand_ was – but he was a bit busy trying to escape from the fire it kept belching at him. 

“You’re not fighting it,” his companion pointed out, clearly unbothered by the dragon and the fire and the panicked scramble out. 

“Saboteur,” Prompto squeaked as he rolled into a landing, well aware that the time it would take the spell to reconstitute him back on solid ground might be enough to get him punted in the face by the dragon, and not sure the spell would even protect him from that, the same way it did the spike pits. 

He was trying to forget about the spike pits, actually. 

“Oh, that’s right,” she said, like they were taking a stroll in a park, not running for their lives, “you’re _Lyra_’s kid too.” 

“Incoming!” Prompto screamed instead as he realized he was right above the starting area, with death close on his heels. 

“Don’t drop down,” his guide advised, pointing at the circuit that lead further up into the room. “Let them handle it, or you’ll have to redo the whole thing again.” 

“Fuck,” Prompto hissed, and took another near blind leap into a too-thin platform up ahead. “Lightning and broadswords work well!” He added, yelling down as he saw Ignis and Gladio come together to face the threat. “I think!” 

The entire structure shook with the force of the clash. It looked way too mean to let only Ignis and Gladio deal with it – Ravus could help, but whether he would depended on whether Luna would bully him into it or not, really, the big lumbering jerk – but Prompto reckoned he could collect the treasure at the end and then double back to offer support. The last stretch of parkouring was significantly less taxing than what came before, so he did it mostly on reflex, focused instead on racking his brain for anything he might have lying around his armiger that could help take down a giant angry dragon of fire and spite. 

“And that would be it,” his guide said, pointing at a sapphire the size of Prompto’s fist, propped up in a little pedestal in the center of the room. “Don’t touch it with your bare hands.” 

“Wasn’t going to,” Prompto replied, grabbing a spare grenade bag and turning it inside out. He used it like a glove to grab the gem, and then hung it from his belt, like he would another bit of ammo. “Right. Dragon time.” 

“Have fun,” his companion said, waving a hand dismissively. 

“You’re not helping?” He asked, eyes narrowed. 

“It’s an overgrown worm that ate one too many spicy dinners,” she said, looking utterly unruffled by the sounds of the fight echoing in the distance. “If that’s all it takes to take you lot out, you weren’t going to make it anyway.” 

Prompto gave her a look, as long as he dared, and then ran back to where the others were. 

Her laughter followed him, as he went, and to be honest, it didn’t feel great. 

* * *

The giant carcass slid off the edge of the platform into abyss below, landing onto the large statue they could barely make out in the depths with a resounding crash. 

It had been a grueling fight, with far too many close calls to count, but between Ravus’ natural affinity for lightning-based magic, Ignis’ near bottomless supply of spell flasks and Gladio and Luna’s hard-hitting strikes, they had managed to overcome. Prompto’s primary contributions to the fight were grabbing Noct and pulling him out of the danger zone and taking potshots at the dragon from behind cover with an experimental magic grenade launcher that Luche had once told him was straight up unnecessary. Went to show what Luche knew, Prompto thought, as he made his way back to the others, Noct thrown over his shoulders. Parkour while carrying his best friend’s best impression of a potato sack was a bit harder when he wasn’t drunk on adrenaline, but he managed. 

“Well, I’ll be damned, you actually survived that.” Their guide laughed in the face of the disgruntled looks they gave her, a loud, unrepentant cackle. Prompto thought she sounded like a hyena when she did that. “Show the Oracle what you found, kid,” she added, before anyone – mostly Ignis, Ignis looked like he was reaching boiling point and was about to snap – could say anything, nodding at Prompto. “She’ll know what it is.” 

“Oh,” Luna said, as she opened the bag Prompto gave her, expression shifting. “It’s a soul stone.” 

She tipped the bag open, but rather than fall into her hand, the sapphire stopped an inch above her palm, floating in place as if by its own volition. 

“Your Highness,” Gladio said, in a tone that Prompto knew meant his temper was fraying at the edges, but he was infinitely better than Ignis at keeping it in check, at least while they were still under threat. 

“A soul stone is a lost record keeping art, from the age of Solheim,” Luna explained, tilting her hand and causing the gem to spin as it floated above it. “It’s… it’s someone’s literal soul, crystalized and left behind to preserve their knowledge and their memories. There’s very few of them left.” 

“But most importantly,” the woman who’d led them there said, eyes serpentine, “they cannot be falsified.” 

Luna swallowed hard. 

“You promised us the truth,” she said, staring up at her. “But you will not share your name?” 

She smiled. 

“Ardyn,” she said, after a moment. “You can call me Ardyn Lucis Caelum.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Come hang out on [DW](https://notavodkashot.dreamwidth.org/) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/notavodkashot), if you'd like.


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